Weekend Extra: For Reinharts, hockey is a family affair

The game’s in the genes, but hard work is still needed for success, says dad Paul

West Vancouver’s Sam Reinhart is the top 2014 NHL draft pick. Sports writer Elliott Pap talks to Sam Reinhart about the draft and his family.

The youngest son of Paul and Theresa Reinhart is relaxing on the patio of the Hollyburn Country Club, the National Hockey League’s entry draft looming, and he is talking about his mom.

OK, he glowingly mentioned dad Paul and brothers Max and Griffin, too, but mom, he decided, could use the publicity. In fact, she deserved it.

“My mom has always been there for me,” says Sam Reinhart, 18. “She’s just as important as my dad, and more important in some ways. She probably doesn’t get as much credit in the media so she’s probably happy I’m saying that.”

What mom wouldn’t be? Sam was her baby and he’ll be the last one to have his name called at an NHL draft. Max, 22, went to the Calgary Flames in the third round in 2010 and has played two professional seasons in the Flames’ system with the Abbotsford Heat. Griffin, 20, was taken fourth overall by the New York Islanders in 2012 and just captained the Edmonton Oil Kings to the Memorial Cup.

Sam, captain of the WHL’s Kootenay Ice, is expected to be selected higher than both his brothers, perhaps even first overall. He is ranked at the head of his class by The International Scouting Service and TSN. The Hockey News rates him third behind centre Sam Bennett and defenceman Aaron Ekblad. Central Scouting also has him third. Sam is considered a complete player, a two-way centre adept at both ends of the ice, good on the power play, good on the penalty kill, disciplined, smart.

The first round of the draft goes Friday in Philadelphia. Barring trades, the Florida Panthers will pick first, followed by the Buffalo Sabres and Edmonton Oilers. The Vancouver Canucks hold the sixth pick.

“I’m excited for it but I’m a little bit nervous, too,” says Sam. “During a game, I never get nervous but, at this point, there is nothing more you can do. So I am certainly anxious. I’ll be happy to go anywhere but mom would probably want it to be a team in Hawaii ... if they had one.”

Theresa Reinhart has been immersed in hockey ever since she met Paul, a first-round Flames’ pick himself in 1979, during his playing days in Calgary. They were married in 1986. She has three sisters and a brother but didn’t grow up in a hockey environment.

“I played tennis, badminton, volleyball, skied in the winter and golfed in the summer,” she said. “It was probably my karma to have three boys because I grew up with three sisters. It was payback, I’m sure. I tell the boys all the time that I only wanted girls.”

She was kidding, of course, (we think.) She never misses a game when Max, Griffin and Sam are playing, and she’ll be in Philly for the draft. Her only escape from hockey is to avoid the television set when there isn’t a Reinhart in the lineup.

“When hockey is on TV, unless one of the boys is playing, I just leave the room,” she explained. “I didn’t watch the playoffs, not one game. I’ll watch the boys and no one else.”

It was fun for her to watch them grow up, too. The boys were born less than four years apart so you can imagine the potential for chaos with three energetic, athletic, competitive kids.

“They never really fought, at least rarely,” she said. “But they argued. The older two liked to pick on Sam. In fact, they were picking on him two days ago. They know how to press his buttons and they find it entertaining. But, no, he never came to me to tattletale on them. It was never that bad.”

Sam did manage to discover ways to avenge a perceived wrong, like pouring water in Max’s bed and then trying to convince him it was something else.

“I may have said it was pee,” Sam chuckled. “We never tried to hurt each other ... although there was a parking lot incident at the rink last year. But no one stays mad for too long.”

Then there was the celebrated incident when Sam and Griffin managed to set the family house on fire. The story has been told before but it is always worth repeating. Sam explained how it came down.

“It was all Griffin, all his fault, and I had nothing to do with it,” Sam claimed, none too convincingly. “I was in Grade 5 and Griffin would have been in Grade 6 and we were at the age where we were wrestling together. We kind of quit the wrestling team at school because we were different ages and they wouldn’t let us wrestle against each other and that’s all we wanted to do.

“So we moved a futon into the middle of our rec room at home and we wrestled there. I think we had stopped wrestling for about a year and we pushed the futon out of the way, against a baseboard heater that had never been on our whole lives, to create room for other games. Somehow the futon just ignited.”

The boys then went out and it was Paul who came home to discover the fire. He opted to call in the pros, rather than try to put it out himself.

“The fire department came rushing in and when I asked them what had happened, they said: ‘Well, there was a futon against a baseboard heater ...’ ” Paul explained. “Setting the house on fire is probably their best brother story, at least the best one they can tell you.”

Sam and Griffin were not grounded, however. In fact, the family had to move out for two weeks and, while the repairs were being done, they lived at the ritzy Pan Pacific Hotel in downtown Vancouver.

“They loved that,” noted Theresa.

“I mean,” added Sam, “it could have been a lot worse.”

With Sam about to join Max and Griffin as an NHL draft pick, the Reinharts have emerged as B.C.’s first family of hockey. They’ll never match the Sutters of Alberta, who put six boys in the NHL, but no one is their match on the Left Coast.

Paul is plainly a proud pappa. His DNA and coaching tips have helped Max, Griffin and Sam to become the players they are, but — as he points out — if that’s all it took to make the NHL, every team would be filled by sons of former players. There is plenty more involved than just a last name and a little bit of coaching advice.

“Ninety-nine per cent of what each of them has accomplished has come from them,” said Paul, who played 11 NHL seasons with the Flames and Canucks before a wonky back ended his career. “They deserve a tremendous amount of credit for the time and effort and enthusiasm they have put into it, and continue to put into it.

“We also had the benefit of having a small ice surface here at Hollyburn and, right from an early age, there wasn’t a Sunday afternoon when they didn’t want to come up here and play shinny. So they spent a tremendous amount of time on the ice and it wasn’t me going on with them, it was them going on the ice with all their friends.”

Paul does concede he will be happy when the 2014 draft is over and Sam’s team, and destination, have been determined. Since Sam’s WHL season ended, he has been to Calgary for the league awards — he was named player of the year and most sportsmanlike player — to Switzerland to practise with the Kevin Bieksa-captained Team Canada, to Toronto for the NHL scouting combine and to New York City for Game 3 of the Stanley Cup Final.

Paul, 54, insists there won’t be a lump in his throat when Sam is picked.

“Watching your son step on the ice for his first NHL game is a way bigger thrill,” he said. “I think the message Sam has been able to benefit from, watching Max and Griffin, is that where you’re drafted, in terms of place and number, means nothing if you don’t get an opportunity to play in that organization as soon as possible.

“So that, quite frankly, is of way more importance and will give me a greater thrill than any particular city Sam gets drafted to. In terms of ranking importance, what happens next Sept. 15 to Oct. 6 or so, at training camp, will be far more important than any draft.”

The Reinhart family, dad Paul, mom Theresa, and sons Max, Griffin, and Sam (l-r) live the hockey life. Dad and two eldest sons have played in the NHL. Youngest son Sam is expected to be a first-round pick in the upcoming draft.

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